


metamorphosis

by gortysproject



Series: good riddance, edwards island [2]
Category: Oxenfree
Genre: BASICALLY Jonas and Alex helping each other deal with what they went through on the island, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, References to Drugs, Sequel to another fic, Substance Abuse, Trauma, Underage Drinking, references to mental illness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 17:05:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12085452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gortysproject/pseuds/gortysproject
Summary: Leaving Edwards Island felt like a bubble. It was a tight cocoon, where panic wasn’t real, wasn’tallowedto be real, just yet. There’s no such thing aspost-traumatic stresswhen the trauma is fresh, and real, andhappening, flickering in the corner of Alex’s vision not as a memory but as a continuing event.Leaving Edwards Island after being pulled out of the rift seemed to have a healing effect on Jonas. By some strange miracle, he knew Alex was trapped, and he stayed in the cocoon with her.“You’re not gonna leave this time,” he promised her, and for a brief moment they both pretended it was something he had the ability to promise.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is a sequel to my fic "good riddance, edwards island", and there are a lot of references to it in this one so i would recommend reading that first. i haven't decided how many chapters this will be yet but it's at least 3
> 
> (this is basically my self-indulgent "siblings who love each other and help each other get better" fic. there is not a lot of solid plot.)

The first time Alex and Jonas left the island, they suffered for it. They cried their ways through nightmares, and clenched their fists when anyone talked about Edwards Island, and hyperventilated when headaches pressed a little too close between their eyes and they wondered, _is this real, am I here, did I leave_ —

Alex soon found out the answer to that question was, _no_. She found that out half a year later, and then several years later, when it finally clicked that _I’ve been here before. I know this place. I know these people. I know the birds fly out of this bush and I know the anomaly asks me if I want to play a game and I know Maggie’s key is a radio and I know—_

After that, leaving Edwards Island felt like a bubble. It was a tight cocoon, where panic wasn’t real, wasn’t _allowed_ to be real, just yet. There’s no such thing as _post-traumatic stress_ when the trauma is fresh, and real, and _happening_ , flickering in the corner of Alex’s vision not as a memory but as a continuing event. When she was stuck, but those around her were falling into the aftermath, all she could do was help them through it.

“You seem, like, _really_ unaffected by this stuff,” Ren told her, once, on the fifteenth or fiftieth time they sat on his balcony with their legs hanging between the railings. She hummed in agreement. She wasn’t affected, not yet, because she wasn’t allowed to be. _Not yet_.

Leaving Edwards Island after being pulled out of the rift seemed to have a healing effect on Jonas. By some strange miracle, he knew Alex was trapped and he stayed in the cocoon with her. For Ren, and Nona, and Clarissa and Michael, the Kanaloa and everything surrounding it was a fresh memory for them to cry over and bond over and, through time, forget.

Jonas knew Alex could flicker back out of existence any second. So did Alex. And even though logic and time and event suggested that she _wouldn’t_ , they were both aware that she _could_. They didn’t dare step foot outside the horror show, just as Alex never did before.

It was good, at first. Jonas was more afraid of the dark, and yet, less afraid of what he could find in it. Afraid in a practical sense. Afraid in that he’d grab the candlestick when he heard a bump in the night, not dissolve into a panic attack. Alex almost thought she might have saved him from the pain, by helping him remember.

Of course, there is a sharper pain that comes with remembering, but that’s what the candlestick is for.

Because he remembered, Jonas could also help Alex. “You’re not gonna leave this time,” he promised her, and for a brief moment they both pretended it was something he had the ability to promise. “We pulled you out. This version is the real version.”

“You don’t know that,” Alex replied, and their skulls bumped lightly when they leaned into each other. (It was three in the morning. Neither of them actually meant to hit heads with the other. That doesn’t mean they didn’t stay there.)

“No,” Jonas said, honest, “but I really think it’s true. And if it’s true, then everyone’s gonna remember what you’re acting like. And if you keep acting like none of this matters and nobody’s gonna remember it in a few months, then everyone’s just gonna think you’re some kind of creepy nihilist.”

Alex laughed at that, but it came out slightly strangled. “Excuse you,” she huffs. “I _am_ a creepy nihilist.”

Jonas then explained he only knew the word _nihilist_ because his dad used it last week and told him what it meant, and Alex shoved a hand over his mouth and interrupted with, “I don’t care and I know what you’re doing. And you’re still smart.”

(Jonas groaned at the compliment, and when Alex wouldn’t remove her hand, he licked it. She immediately took back the compliment. They both ignored that he’d learned that trick from her in the first place.)

And so Alex’s birthday came, and she didn’t glitch out of existence when she finished writing a love letter to her former self, and they celebrated. Their celebration was a quiet one, with a store-bought bag of popcorn shoved between them as they watched some dumb film from the eighties and threw the aforementioned popcorn at the television, and then each other.

Now they go to Alex’s 18th birthday party, organised by Ren instead of Alex because _you’re way too apathetic about parties to make this as cool as it deserves to be_ , and Alex finds out what closing that chapter of her life looks like.

It looks like Jonas. It looks like disco lighting that changes into red strobe lighting mid-song, and it looks like Alex watching her former step-brother go rigid in front of her, eyes wide, breath caught on an inhale, hands frozen in mid-air—

It looks like Alex, tugging Jonas away, away to a place that’s safe and quiet where no red lights are flashing overhead.

“Hey,” she says softly, as he gasps for air in lungs that won’t work, drowning in memories of red eyes and black smoke. Alex knows where he is. Jonas has been there every single time they left Edwards Island together.

So, she also knows to calm him down by holding his shoulders, rubbing circles into his skin, and whispering, “You’re not there anymore. _We’re_ not there anymore. It was just a red light, Jonas. Nobody’s in your head.”

The panic attack subsides, after a minute, two minutes, an hour, _nobody cares_ , and she grabs him as he falls forward into her. She holds him steady as they breathe.

After a minute, Jonas awkwardly tries to pull away, cheeks pink with embarrassment because he forgets Alex has seen him go through this a hundred times before (and normally a hundred days earlier). She doesn’t let him step back. Normally, she does, but this time she doesn’t. This time, she pulls him right back in, and wraps her arms around his neck tightly.

He doesn’t respond at first. She can still feel him trembling minutely under her hands, and there’s nothing she can do to soothe him that she isn’t already doing. She just holds on.

Slowly, carefully, Jonas’ arms lift to encircle her waist.

“Thanks,” he mutters roughly, the humiliation still tainting his voice, but apparently Alex’s presence is too inviting for him to push her away again. She feels his face press into her neck, and one of her arms unloops from where she pulls him in, instead resting a hand on his head.

“Don’t mention it,” she replies evenly. She’s balanced on her tiptoes, now.

Jonas pulls back again, a hand shoving its way uncomfortably through his hair, and Alex lets him go. “I, uh,” he starts, and her stomach clenches at the thought that he’ll apologise, but — “You’ve seen me do that before, haven’t you.”

It’s not a question. Sometimes, Alex forgets that Jonas remembers the first six months they spent together, too. He just doesn’t remember the others that followed. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, sometimes you start with the panic attacks, like, a week after we leave. Sometimes it’s a day, if we had a _super_ rough time on the island.” She hesitates. “You did pretty well this time. Might even be a record.”

Jonas rolls his eyes, and Alex ignores how wet they are for his sake. “Stop talking like it’s gonna happen again. We’re here now, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” she replies, softer than she intended, and she watches his shoulders relax fractionally. “Yeah, we are.”

They stand there for a moment longer, unsure of what to say to each other, unwilling to re-enter the party before they’ve really caught their breaths. Alex isn’t particularly popular at school, but she isn’t unpopular, either, and Ren must’ve invited between sixty and eighty people to this party. Most of them are outside, as the evening is uncharacteristically warm, but a decent number are still inside, with the music and the flashing lights and the snack table and _no_ sense of personal space. Drunk people tend to be like that. High people tend to be like that.

Alex is sober in both respects, and she’d rather keep it that way. Ren’s study is a cool, quiet break from the intensity of the gathering, and she’s content to share it with Jonas while they both prepare themselves for this new chapter of their lives.

“I don’t wanna go out there,” Jonas says.

“God,” Alex replies, the relief bubbling through her and spilling out, “me _neither_.”

They pause, looking at each other in the small space. Blink. And then, slowly, together, they begin to laugh. It’s a quiet laugh, an understanding one, and they draw together in the fairly compact space just to lean against the desk. The giggling peters out, eventually, and Alex exhales slowly.

“Guys, Macy says she saw you—are you two making out in here?”

Ren bursts in, and Alex flinches, Jonas likely jumping just as much as her as they scramble upright and glare at their new company. Ren currently looks exactly like any other teenager at a party when the hand’s hovering dangerously close to midnight – slightly sweaty, wide-eyed and buzzed, somehow grinning stupidly even when he isn’t actually smiling.

“Ew, no!” Alex’s nose scrunches up. “He’s my st— _friend_. He’s my friend. We’re friends.”

“Kinda sounds like you have a crush on me,” Jonas replies easily, and when she turns back to him, he’s got a stupid grin that almost matches Ren’s completely. “What? You denied it pretty aggressively.”

“That’s because I’m feeling pretty aggressive,” she shoots back, punching him in the shoulder. He winces. “Besides, you _know_ what I was about to say.” Before Jonas can respond, she turns back to Ren. “Stop barging in on stuff and tell Macy to shut up. And go drink a glass of water or something.”

Ren giggles, backing out of the room obediently, and Alex looks back at Jonas. She wants to be jokingly annoyed at him, but the smile on his face is so brilliant in comparison to the expression that was there before that she can’t bear to wipe it off, even in jest. “You shut up too,” she manages instead.

He snorts. “I wasn’t saying anything.”

She pulls the door open. “Ready to go own all those strobe lights?”

The smile slips, slightly, and Alex immediately regrets her words – but it’s okay, apparently, as Jonas replies after, “As I’ll ever be.” He gestures for her to go first, and they leave the room together, fingers twitching as though they want to hold hands for the comfort.

They don’t hold hands. They just enjoy the party.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind Of A Sad Chapter but the next one is nicer

> _Hey Jonas, it’s Michael. I don’t know if you have my number? But I was wondering if you’d spoken to Alex lately, and if she was okay and stuff. Normally she calls me every day around this time, but she hasn’t called for some time._

> _Hey it’s jonas i just saw this she might just be asleep?? When does she normally call_

> _Hey Jonas. Sorry, didn’t make it clear. I meant she hasn’t called in over a week. I didn’t wanna seem pushy in case she just doesn’t want to talk but is she okay?_

> _Uh sure we haven’t spoken in the last couple days but we’re just busy w school stuff_

> _Hey Jonas, I just asked my mom and apparently Alex isn’t at home. Any idea where she might be? It’s super late. I think she’s worried now._

 

* * *

 

Sneaking out of his house is easy enough, and within minutes, Jonas is on the road. His truck creaks under him at the early-morning wakeup, and he pats the wheel absently, shivering against the cold air. The dashboard clock blinks a sleepy 3:37AM at him, and the radio drones on about some unimportant local news.

He switches off the radio. It feels wrong to hear the voices talking to him when he can’t talk back.

Jonas’ mind casts back as he drives, thinking of everything he never thought to question – no, he hasn’t had a proper conversation with Alex in a couple of days, but if she isn’t responding to anything, it can’t be good. He’s not particularly sure where he’s supposed to be looking for her, and his mind scrolls through every location she could seek refuge in.

He then wonders if she even is seeking refuge. Alex doesn’t seem to be the type who needs a safety blanket. Alex doesn’t seem to need anything from Jonas in comparison to what he needs from her.

Grip tightening fractionally on the wheel, Jonas keeps his eyes on the road ahead.

_No_ , he reminds himself, _Alex has her own scars_. And she does – she has nightmares that she shoots bolt upright out of, Jonas or Ren or Clarissa’s name on her lips as she reaches out to something that doesn’t exist. She cries hot, furious tears when her hands won’t stop shaking enough for her to open the lid of a bottle or paint the leaves of a tree. She startles whenever she hears a voice over the radio, whenever a video glitches, whenever anyone starts talking about the island—

_The island_.

Jonas swerves off the road harshly, barely turning in time to follow the road down to the ferry port. The car speeds up, now, engine groaning as he floors it down an empty road, gaze fixed ahead steadily.

He knows everything from before is fake – Alex is nowhere near as terrified of her memories as he is. Something about reliving the same period of her life over and over seems to have desensitised her; it might be that she’s seen too many different options of what could have happened to ever let herself dwell in _what-ifs_ , because for so long, _what-ifs_ became _next-times_. Maybe Edwards Island hardened her into a stronger person, chiselling away at her fears until none remained.

Because Alex might scream in the night, and cry in the day, and flinch at reminders of what happened to her, but she will never back away from what happened. Never hide. Never run away.

At least, that’s what Jonas thought. But here she is, potentially running away, so he might not be able to trust himself on this topic just yet.

There’s a shadow sat on the short wall running along the coast when Jonas pulls into the empty parking lot, and his headlights flash over it when he turns the car round into one of the spaces marked out on the ground. The brief illumination tells him everything he needs to know when he catches a glimpse of red and another of teal-blue.

He kills the engine. The figure hasn’t moved since he arrived, and he sits in his car for a moment, staring at her, summoning the courage to get out and walk over.

Eventually, Jonas’ hand presses against the door, and it swings open with a telling creak. Jonas begins to walk over. As Alex grows closer, he sees two bottles by her side. “Alex,” he calls, and she doesn’t respond. “Alex, hey, it’s me.”

For one heart-stopping moment, he expects to find her with an aura of black smoke and red eyes, spewing childish insults, wobbling on the wall before she pushes herself off to hit the rocks below. He swallows. Closes his eyes. Exhales.

When he reaches her, he grabs her arm before she can jump, tugging her back and letting her hit his chest. Alex still doesn’t respond to him, just keeps staring blankly ahead at the channel before them.

Jonas looks down at her. Her gaze is empty, her face expressionless, her eyelids undrooping but her shoulders slumped. “Alex,” he starts quietly, and she blinks. It’s something. “Come on, come back. I don’t know where you are right now, but give me three guesses and I might be able to figure it out.”

Slowly, his gaze shifts from her face to the island in the middle of the water, shrouded by early-morning clouds, hazy through the fog. It’s where her gaze is directed too, clearly. “You’re not there.” Jonas says. “You’re here. You’re okay. You made it out.”

“I’m still there,” Alex replies, calmly, as though she were discussing the weather. Anxiety claws at Jonas’ stomach, climbing with ragged nails up his oesophagus every time he glances out at the island – _still there, still ready to kill him_ – and Alex sits and stares at it like drying paint. Boring. Unsurprising. Familiar.

“No, you’re not,” he says firmly. “You’ve been drinking, right? That’s what the bottles are.” _That’s new_.

“The bottles were for the ferry,” Alex responds monotonously. “I wanted to set it on fire, and I know alcohol burns, so it seemed like a good plan, but… but then I remembered Karen, and David, and everyone else who works at the ferry port, and I felt bad. So I just drank them. Seemed like as good an idea as any.”

Jonas moves to the other side of Alex, the side where the bottles aren’t perched, and sits on the wall facing the other way back toward the parking lot. “You were gonna set an entire boat on fire with two bottles of beer as fuel?”

With a huff, Alex replies, “Maybe I had a couple before I came out, too.”

A pause. “How long have you been here?”

“Since midnight.” As Jonas’ fingers brush against Alex’s arm, he feels the icy cold that’s melted into her bones by now. “I just needed a minute alone. I can do this without you.”

“A minute alone, or a _week_?” Jonas asks, and then, “Michael was worried about you.”

“Michael worries about everyone,” Alex mutters. A moment later, her foot lifts up to perch on the wall, and she pulls her knee close to her chest. It’s almost a relief for Jonas – it’s the first time he’s actually seen her _move_ since he arrived.

The waves crash against the rocks below them in the silence that follows as Alex stares out to the sea, Jonas’ head turned to look at her in the dim light. A single light flickers above them, in charge for illuminating the entire parking lot in these early hours and seeming to crumble under the weight of the responsibility.

Just as Jonas is about to pull his phone out, text Michael _I found her_ , Alex says out of nowhere, “I have to go back.”

“You…” Jonas pauses. “What? Back _there_?” At the question, he sticks his hand out almost accusingly at the island on their horizon.

Alex nods carefully, normally, easily. “Back there.”

Jonas waits for an explanation and receives none, so then he says, “No way.” The thought wraps around his mind for a brief second, and he wrestles with it, pushing it away to repeat, “No _way_.”

“You can’t _stop_ me,” she bites back, and again, there’s a twinge of relief deep inside Jonas at the emotion beginning to seep back into Alex’s voice, as though she’s slowly rediscovering what it means to be human again. Before he can respond, she softens, adding, “I need to go back. I need to – I dunno, do _something_.”

“Why are you saying this— why are you saying this _now_?”

Alex shrugs. “Overheard a family talking about going here at the mall on Tuesday. Youngish couple with a toddler, all about to grab a backpack and head over to Edwards Island for a day trip. A goddamn _day trip_ , Jonas. I can’t – we just let people think it was safe to go back. We didn’t tell anyone about what happened, we _need_ to tell—”

“Alex, thousands of people go to Edwards Island every freaking year,” Jonas cuts in, fingers gripping the edge of the wall. “None of them die! None of them go into a spooky cave and trigger a ghost apocalypse, none of them get stuck in time loops, none of them even realise the place is _haunted_!” He leans back, looking at her properly. “They wouldn’t believe you, and they’re not gonna stop going to the island if you tell them.”

Shifting away, Alex looks down at the rocks below. “I have to try.”

“This isn’t your fight,” Jonas pleads, tone steady but voice shaking. “You got out of there. _Stay_ out.”

The lightbulb above them continues flickering. The waves crash louder, now, a building crescendo beneath their feet. Edwards Island is obscured by the fog for a brief moment before becoming fully visible, the clouds passing swiftly and silently.

The sky slowly begins to creep into dawn, as Alex slowly begins to move her legs over the wall and face the parking lot. Jonas watches her wordlessly, not wanting to scare her away with anything he could say. A cold breeze rushes over them; it raises goose bumps across their exposed skin, reminds them of the cold night and their position beside the sea.

Alex stands up, and for a moment Jonas thinks she’s ready to leave, before she turns back around. Her hand reaches out to wrap around one of the empty beer bottles. She picks it up.

The bottle spins in her hand, now held as a weapon, and she throws it out at the ocean with all the strength she can muster. “You _asshole_!” she yells, her voice the loudest Jonas has ever heard it, and he flinches. “You – _shithead_!”

Her hand reaches for the next bottle, and Jonas stands up to stop her but she’s already tossing it, gasping with the effort it takes to throw so _vehemently_. Above her, the lightbulb flickers and dies.

No bottles left, her anger floods through her, and she kicks the wall once—twice— _thrice_ , still yelling all the while.

“You took – you took _everything_ from me! I _loved_ you!”

“Alex,” Jonas starts, but he cuts himself off – she isn’t going to hear him, she won’t listen to him. This is for her. So he watches in silence as she scuffs her shoe on the wall, again and again, screaming insults at an island and a conquering people in the wrong dimension to hear the crack of betrayal in her sharp voice.

At some point, she stops screaming words, and Jonas only notices as much when she stops kicking the wall and falls to her knees against the concrete. Alex is only sobbing, now, ragged and heaving and still so, _so_ raging, and she punches the wall as fiercely as she’d kicked it – only once, as the strength in the punch might well have broken her finger.

Her hand pulls back. She cradles it against her chest.

Jonas drops down beside her. He cradles her against his chest.

“I hate it,” she sobs, “god, fucking—Jonas, I _hate_ it, I’m not _me_ anymore, I can’t—” Alex is interrupted by a violent hiccup, and she coughs, afterwards, turning away from Jonas and trying to tug herself back.

Jonas almost lets her go, but pulls her back in a moment later – he’s clumsy and hesitant and bad at comforting her, he _knows_ he is, but he can’t just leave her alone to deal with… everything. “You can’t go back to the island,” he says quietly. “I got you back. I can’t lose you again. Don’t make me—”

“What else do I have,” she asks, but it’s not a question. “I’m there. I’m _still_ there. This isn’t me, I’m not me anymore, I’m over there reliving the same six _goddamn_ months over and over again.” There’s a pause, and between them they just hear Alex’s breaths shaking. Jonas wonders if she can hear the way his heart smacks against his ribcage. “I can’t let anyone else go to Edwards Island,” she says eventually. “I have to stop them from going. I need to go over there, and—”

“Don’t,” he whispers, ignoring the panic that spikes through him at the mere _idea_. “I don’t think I can go back there.”

Alex’s breath catches. “Then don’t,” she replies in a mumble. “I didn’t mean _you_ , I meant _me_.”

“Well, there’s no way in hell I’m leaving you to go _alone_.”

Shifting up, Alex looks at Jonas, with bloodshot eyes and tear tracks running down her cheeks, and a bottom lip that looks thoroughly abused by her teeth and a slightly vacant edge to her gaze as she retreats back to her own personal bubble; she broke free to scream, to hurl abuse at an enemy that couldn’t even hear her. That was enough.

“Okay,” she says softly. “Okay.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: hey why wasn't jonas in the picture they took outside the bunker in the Michael Lives timeline?  
> me, a few hours later: well here's my 8000 word thesis on every single picture taken in the Michael Lives timeline thank you for reading--

Sometimes healing looks like a shortness of breath and a panicked stare when the strobe lights at a party turn red. Sometimes it looks like sitting at a ferry port for hours and screaming at a mass of dirt and trees for ruining your life. Most of the time, it looks like toes jammed under cushions to stay warm and mugs of coffee in the early hours while recounting every fear, every doubt, every memory to the only person you can trust enough to listen to them.

“Yesterday,” Alex says, a flicker of amusement in her voice, “Nona was asking me if I remember finding her at the campground when we were on Edwards Island. And I just – I just stared at her, like, _Nones, you weren’t at the campground_. It was like – we spent, like, fifteen minutes just arguing about whether she was at the campground. Then I remembered I had no idea _where_ I found her.”

“It was at the campground,” Jonas replies amicably. “I was there, too.”

Slumping back, Alex pulls a face as she tries not to spill the coffee over the brim of her mug, and rests her chin on her chest. The sofa isn’t big enough for the two of them, and it’s equally small enough for her to be able to stick her feet in his face. “Shut up. Wait. Is that why you still have that picture of me with the ball? Because we were there together?”

Jonas grimaces at Alex’s feet, but nods. “Yeah, you were, like…” He pauses. “Wait, you went through the same six months, like, a hundred times—”

“—Ninety-seven.”

“— _Ninety-seven_ times, and you never thought to ask what actually happens on the island when Michael comes back to life?” Lip quirked, Jonas stares at Alex, and his fingers curl and uncurl repetitively around his mug to busy his hands.

“What exactly was I going to _say_?” Alex asks. “ _Hi, I don’t remember anything from our weirdly traumatic experience of Edwards Island, can someone take me on a step-by-step of the night’s events_?”

Jonas chuckles. “Okay, fine. Just… I went into the cave first, again. You and Michael both followed me, because I was _Ren’s friend_ but Ren was too stoned to move. The cave entrance blocked up, we were stuck down there, we saw the green triangle, you did your radio thing… only, you and Michael woke up at Harden Tower. I woke up in the middle of Fort Milner somewhere. A different part of it to Clarissa. But I guess you guys still came to get her after talking on the radio – I just followed the speakers. She kept saying where she was, so I was trying to find it, and I found her, like, a minute before you did. And then all the crazy time loop stuff happened and she – you know.”

Alex vividly pictures watching Clarissa drop from the window. It’s a sight she’ll never forget. “Yeah, I know.”

“Anyway,” Jonas continues, “we went to get Ren. I guess you guys came for Clarissa first because she was Michael’s girlfriend? I dunno. But we found Nona along the way, so I volunteered to go with her back to Harden Tower.”

“D’aww,” Alex replies, and it’s Jonas’s turn to shove at her with his foot. “What? It’s cute. You being all… chivalrous. Gentlemanly.”

She grins at him, and he rolls his eyes in return. “Or, Nona was on the verge of a breakdown and I was one hundred percent third-wheeling on the Alex and Michael Adventures already,” he says. “Seriously. It’s not your fault, you two just click super well, and I barely knew either of you.”

“Sorry,” Alex says. “I mean it. I… _other-me_ wouldn’t have wanted you to feel left out.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jonas says, half-hearted. “I mean, it wasn’t _just_ that. Someone had to take care of Nona and none of us wanted her coming to find Ren, and I’m pretty sure Michael wasn’t going to let you out of his sight after what happened to Clarissa, so it kinda just fell on me.”

Alex raises an eyebrow. “Oh, I see. Michael saw _you_ as the expendable one.” She looks mildly amused. “I’m gonna have to have some _real_ stern words with him when—”

“Nope,” Jonas interrupts, “no stern words. No thank you.” He pauses to remember what they were talking about, and then continues. “So, I took Nona back to the Tower while you went to find Ren. Then you came back to the Tower, with Ren, and came up with the plan to steal Maggie Adler’s boat, and then…” He hesitates. “Then you went with Ren and Michael to go find the key while Nona and I stayed on the Tower. Like, you had the radio, Ren had the plan, and Michael still had that _overprotective older brother_ thing going on.”

“Did you feel put out of a job?” Alex coos, and he shoves at her again. She snorts gracelessly.

The forgotten television screen flickers in front of them, and they both glance to it briefly as it plays some dumb commercial. It’s been on mute for the last three hours – Alex isn’t even aware what early morning film is even playing right now.

After a moment, Jonas returns to glaring at her. “ _Anyway_ , Nona and I decided to come find you at Maggie’s house, and… everything from there was basically the same. Clarissa was in the house. The ghosts started playing weird games with all of us. We found a way back into the cave.” He clicks his tongue. “Uh, you and Michael went to go do the call and response thingy in the forest. I stayed with Ren and Nona. And then they got together, which was – like, _super_ awkward. I was just… standing there.”

Alex hesitates. “You’re not in the picture,” she says. “The one before…”

“Yeah, no, I screwed up. Went to the bottom of the hill for a smoke while we were waiting for you, and there was the, um. The tape player.” His voice sounds oddly thick at that, and Alex shifts in her position on the sofa. “Ren was like _, don’t touch it_ , but Nona thought it would be okay, so I tried to get it to work… then you guys came back, and I asked you to help with the… well, you helped me with the radio, and I disappeared into Sad Memory Land. I’m super useful like that.”

“Hey,” Alex says. “If it’s any consolation, you disappear either way. Guess the ghosts just didn’t want you around.”

Jonas snorts. “Well, _that_ makes me feel better.” He shifts in his seat. “Anyway, Michael woke up on the beach, and he carried you to the ferry port, and we went home. And you woke up.”

Sipping from her mug, Alex thinks back over what Jonas just said. “Is that what happened to us?” she asks. “When – when Michael wasn’t there. Did we just get dropped off on the beach? I remember someone saying you carried me.”

“What else was I gonna do, leave you there?”

Alex blows her fringe out of her eyes. “Bet your arms were super sore after that.”

“Not really,” Jonas replies mildly, and then pauses. “That wasn’t, like – I’m not bragging, or anything, you’re just really light.” At Alex’s amused eyebrow quirk, he adds, “Seriously. It was like carrying dinnerplates. Anyway, I was less thinking about my arms and more thinking about how you weren’t, you know, _waking up._ We figured if you didn’t wake up by the time the ferry docked, we should take you to hospital.”

This causes Alex to giggle, and she’s not entirely sure why. “God, what would you even _say_? _Doctor, Doctor, my sister fell through a rip in time and space and she won’t wake up_.”

Jonas rolls his eyes. “Well, when Michael was there, he said the same thing, basically. About the hospital. It’s actually really freaky to be, like, _completely_ unable to wake someone up, you know?”

Alex tries to reply, but she blinks and the world behind her eyelids is Michael, floating lifelessly, dragged to shore but he won’t wake up, skin cold and eyes closed and—

“Yeah,” she mutters, “I know.”

When she looks back up from her mug, Jonas is frowning at her. She raises an eyebrow to ask why. Jonas looks away, briefly, but there’s clearly a question on his mind that he doesn’t quite want to ask and Alex knows she won’t quite want to answer.

“How… how is Michael not dead anymore?” he asks eventually.

Alex releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding, and quickly, Jonas adds, “I mean – if you don’t wanna talk about it, then that’s, like, totally fine, I was just wondering because—”

“I went back,” she interrupts. “You know all those memories we kept getting slammed into? They were, like, _actual_ time travel. And I kept getting thrown back to the same moments every time, and sometimes I could save Michael’s life by telling him not to move out with Clarissa. It was like, if he didn’t move out, we didn’t go swimming in the lake to celebrate, and he didn’t… you know.”

“Yeah,” Jonas replies, and there’s a careless reverence in his voice. He knows what death is. “But Michael _did_ move out.”

Alex swallows. “Yeeeeah,” she says, the word dragged out uncomfortably. “When you guys pulled me out of the portal, there was a kind of… intermission, before I woke up on the ferry. I got dropped into another memory. Normally I’d tell Michael not to move out with Clarissa, but this time I just got dunked straight into Horn Lake.”

“Oh, shit.”

“ _Yeah_ , oh shit.” She laughs, but it’s humourless. “It was the moment he got his foot stuck and drowned. Only, because I was… prepared for it, I pulled him out. So he didn’t die.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence. Unable to bear it, she adds monotonously, “Whoo.”

Jonas pulls a face. “That’s – sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, no,” Alex interjects, “it’s actually – I’m kinda surprised you didn’t ask before. I mean, it’s a super obvious thing to notice, my brother not being dead, so you, uh, held out pretty well.”

With a huff, he replies, “Yeah, I assumed it would be something weird and time-travel-y. Just didn’t know what.” He pauses in a way that tells Alex there’s another question coming, and she puts the mug down, getting comfortable in preparation.

Eventually, Jonas continues, “That actually reminds me. I wanted to ask about… about what happened in the cave. The second time. When you, you know, saved the day. I asked Michael what his experience was, but he said he just went into the cave with you and then you disappeared.”

Alex presses her lips together, trying to find a good answer. “I mean,” she says, “I actually have no idea what happened, because I don’t remember any of it—”

“Yeah, with _Michael’s_ version,” Jonas interrupts, “but I bet the same thing happened to you both times. Or, uh, _all_ times. The only difference was that Michael didn’t get hoovered up into a tape player beforehand. He just had to stand there and wait for you, from what I could tell.”

The television is still flickering. On closer inspection, Alex realises it’s one of the Indiana Jones movies. She wouldn’t be able to guess which one. “Well,” she says carefully, eyes still on the television screen, “I, um. I go through the rift – the big triangle – every time. Then I’m standing underwater with the Kanaloa, and Clarissa’s there and everyone’s possessing her, and then… then we kind of flick around a few places while we talk. Just parts of the island, but they’re… warped, different, wrong. The ghosts tell me I can leave, and they give me another portal to go back through.”

“And you don’t leave?”

“They asked for Clarissa,” Alex explains, skipping over the question. “Every time, they said, _you can leave if we keep Clarissa_. Every fucking time.” Desperately, she tries to swallow back the next words, but they come pouring out before she can. “And – it’s not that I _wanted_ to, I wanted to _save_ her, I tried to save her every time, but—”

She drops her head. “But after trying the same thing over and over and over again, I thought, hey, maybe this is it. Maybe they’re keeping me in the time loops until I give Clarissa over.”

Jonas’ lips part, as though he wants to say something, but nothing comes out. Alex continues. “I let them take her. It was – what, twenty times in? I don’t even remember. I just – I let them have her, ’cause I couldn’t do it anymore. And when I woke up on the ferry, it was like… she’d never existed. You’d all completely forgotten about her. Even Michael.”

“Holy crap,” Jonas says. That’s all he really can say.

“And now you think I suck.”

“No,” Jonas backtracks, “no, Alex, you were – come on, _anyone_ would’ve tried it. Probably a whole lot earlier, too! You just—” He hesitates. “You were doing what you could. Trying every option.”

Alex doesn’t respond, and anxiety curls around Jonas’ ribcage as he wonders if she’s retreating again, back into her own mind to escape the real world. He watches her stare at the television. Thirty seconds. A minute. Two minutes.

Abruptly, he reaches for the remote and unmutes it, allowing the cacophony of whichever Indiana Jones film this is to blast out from the screen. Alex jumps, violently, and scrambles to re-mute it with a hissed, “ _What the hell are you doing_.”

“Getting your attention,” Jonas replies calmly. Alex blinks.

The clock ticks over to five in the morning, and he asks lightly, “Okay, okay, _real_ questions, now. In all your ninety-seven loops, did anyone ever get so scared they pissed themselves?”

**Author's Note:**

> as always, i'm @hyperionangel on tumblr if u wanna cry about jonas and alex with me


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